


One Night

by I_Write_Midnight_Snacks (Pink_and_Purple_Daisies)



Series: Blackout (Bad Things Happen Bingo) [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Attempted Sexual Assault, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Gen, Hurt Jason Todd, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Street Rat Jason Todd, Unreliable Narrator, Whump, no beta we die like jason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:29:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29892897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pink_and_Purple_Daisies/pseuds/I_Write_Midnight_Snacks
Summary: Chased down by a group of thugs in an alleyway, tired, hungry, and injured, Jason gets saved by Batman. Now if only someone could save him from the Bat.Bingo Square: Attempted Rape
Relationships: Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne
Series: Blackout (Bad Things Happen Bingo) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2189751
Comments: 12
Kudos: 190
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	One Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iselsis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iselsis/gifts).



> Requested by Iselsis for the bad things happen Bingo, she wanted (kid) Jason with "Attempted Rape"! Hope you enjoy it, babe <3
> 
> This one's on the shorter side, because I've also been working on the sequel to "Endless Time" which is coming as soon as the beta gets back to me on it, so look forward to that one soon!

Jason is so, so fucked - literally, if these guys get their hands on him, which they will unless he makes himself scarce _yesterday_.

 _Fuck, fuck, fuck,_ Jason’s usually so careful, too, but he hasn’t found a place to sleep in days because it’s going on winter and most of his usual places are taken, and he was so _tired_ \- Fuck, his lungs are burning from the freezing air. He has to do something soon.

A right, a right, and a then left, there should be a fire escape he can use to get some height, and it’s narrow enough to let one person up - it’s easier to take them one by one, even if Jason already lost his knife trying to fight the first guy and he doesn’t have a weapon. But the Chinese restaurant around the corner sometimes stores its shipment crates out behind on weekends, so if he breaks a piece, maybe he can have a weapon, _something_.

Then the world tilts on its axis, and he barely has time to think that _’Oh. This is gonna hurt a lot’_ before he’s crashing, skin breaking against the rubble covered ground.

There’s still time - the footsteps are only taking the corner, Jason can still run, so he pushes up but - his vision swims, and his elbows buckle.

Oh. Right.

He hasn’t eaten in a few days.

“Heh,” he hears, between panting breaths, a few feet away now. “Look, guys. Little whore tired himself out already,” one of them says - _There’s five of them_ , his brain screams, and Jason has to choke down bile - voice dripping with the same leer that sent shivers down Jason’s spine just a bit earlier.

“Think he’s good enough fer’ a few goes?” another one asks, even closer now. Jason isn’t going to cry. He isn’t. He’s gonna get away. He tries - almost gets to his knees, even, when a weight presses onto his back and _pushes_ down.

“Looks to me like he’s still got some strength left.”

He coughs, the foot pushing down so hard his lungs are seizing. Damnit. He just wanted to sleep, and now they’re all gathered around him and laughing, and he can barely hold his tears because it’s going to suck so much, and he’s going to be sore for _days_. If he’s - if - if he plays nice maybe he’ll get out of this well enough to be able to drag himself to somewhere just a bit safer, maybe, but with five of them, he’s - it’s gonna hurt, and he’s so tired, he’ll probably knock out, and then _anyone_ could find him and - and - fuck, Jason will not cry, he’s not - he won’t - he chokes on a sob, and the dam breaks.

The noise of a zipper sounds like a funeral song. It follows, that Jason would go down in a dirty alleway, alone.

“Brat mouths off like a damn bitch, maybe he sucks dick just as well. Wanna put those pretty lips of his to good use and see?”

“I have a better idea,” someone else says. Jason’s gut churns - maybe if he throws up he’ll gross them out, but there’s not much in there to throw up.

It takes him a second to notice the silence.

It takes just as long for the weight to move from his back as the men all scramble away, kicking Jason in the ribs in the process -

“Fuck,” he rasps with a sharp inhale. That was a dagger to his nerves, all the way to his _back_. Jason _can’t afford a doctor_. Today is only getting worse.

“Hey, man,” one of the guys shrieks, while Jason is still struggling to draw breath. “We’re just havin’ some fun with a li’l whore, we don’ want trouble.”

There’s another pause, heavy and pregnant.

Jason can’t see much, from his position. If someone else showed up… well, he’s screwed either way. He can’t fight off this many people. Not with sleep numbing his thoughts and hunger gripping his limbs and red, burning coals shooting pain through his entire rib-cage.

Still, he managed to avoid traffickers for almost three years. It was a pretty good try.

It was probably dumb to think he’d get much more than that, but he gave it his best.

The figure that moves in front of Jason is big - really big, and built. He closes his eyes.

Nowhere’s safe anymore.

***

Jason must’ve lost time, because he comes back to cold air against his bare skin, and hands on his rib-cage, a warm contrast to the freezing November chill.

“Don’t move,” someone says, before he has the time to panic, “you have a cracked rib. You’ll make it worse.”

That - yeah, that makes sense. He still squints an eye open to get a look at whatever stranger has their hands on him. They almost blend into the darkness, is the first thing Jason notes - big and dark and _are those ears_ \- Oh. Batman.

Yeah, that makes sense, with the lumps a bit further away on the ground, which Jason is pretty sure are his would-be rapists.

“Are you alright, son?” Batman asks, once he’s done doing whatever the hell he’s doing to Jason’s ribs - it helps, because the pounding definitely died down some, but it also doesn’t, because he’s pretty sure Batman is gonna collect his payment from Jason for helping him out, now, and that’s just gonna make it hurt all over again.

“‘M not a whore,” he says anyway.

Batman only nods. “That’s good to know,” he says, then, after a second of Jason saying nothing else. “Did they hurt you anywhere else?”

Another head shake.

“Good. Then, do you have any guardians? Somewhere I can drop you off?”

Why would Batman need to know that? He doesn’t know that Jason is a criminal, so he isn’t gonna beat Jason up, but he’s clearly a street rat, so what is he planning? Maybe Batman just wants to know if anyone’s waiting for Jason, or if he can take his time making Jason repay him for taking the time to save a dirty little street rat like him.

Jason isn’t dumb - Batman doesn’t usually care about people like him. He doesn’t bother saving the working girls or the street kids. They don’t matter. So - so he must want something. And Jason is way too tired and in pain to fight back against someone who easily laid down 5 adult men. So he shakes his head miserably, because it doesn’t matter anyway. He has nowhere to go home to.

Batman sighs at that, though, instead of sounding happy.

“Son, I can’t leave you out here alone,” he says.

With a few words, Jason’s heart stops beating, an adrenaline shot ready to jerk him back into action.

“Fuck off!” he screams. Blades of agony pulse through his ribs but he pushes himself up anyway, shaky arms and tired legs be damned because he won’t be going to a creep’s house without a fight. “‘M not a whore! ‘M not - ya’ can’t make me! Fuck off!” he snarls, with all the anger he can put behind the words.

“Son, I’m not going to hurt you, but I can’t leave you here. You’re hurt, and the streets aren’t safe.”

“What, and your house is?”

Batman sighs. Good. Maybe if he’s annoyed enough, he’ll just leave.

Fat chance, but a kid can hope.

“Foster care-”

“Y’er not puttin’ me in foster care! Fuck you, no, tha’s just a front for traffickers!” he shrieks. No, there’s no fucking way Batman doesn’t know that, there’s _no way_ the city’s hero is that much of an idiot. Not with…

Not with all the kids he put in foster care.

Right in the hands of traffickers.

His fingers grow cold.

No. No, there’s no way - but Batman has to fund his little operation somehow, actually. And nobody would care about some orphaned crime alley kids going missing, so nobody would ever try to stop him, and even Batman could justify it to himself if he said he did it for the sake of protecting the city, but Jason - Jason doesn’t _care_ about the city. The city is a shithole who never did anything for him.

He - he cares about the girls on the corner of the 45th, who sometimes give him a couch to crash on, or - or the men under the big bridge, who let him share their fires, a few times, or old man Sam, who doesn’t have anything, but who still looks out for the kids on the streets, and for that big dog of his. Or - about Danny, who was on the streets longer than Jason, and told him how to keep his feet dry in the winter and showed him a few of his hidey holes. But - but Batman doesn’t care about _these_ people, about those like Jason, and Jason doesn’t want to be sacrificed to this crusade that doesn’t care about him. Not like Danny, who Batman put in “foster care”, and Jason never heard from again.

“Son-”

“Don’ call me that!” he shouts.

“... Alright. Lad, foster care is meant to help. The streets aren’t safe,” he says, all patient and condescending, rising a hand towards Jason, who jerks away once again despite the knives in his ribs.

“Don’ fuckin’ lie! I know what happens, they’re all with the mobs! I’m not an idiot, you’re not selling me off!”

Jason can’t actually stop him, but he’s not rolling over. If he gets the guy angry enough, if he starts beating Jason, at least maybe it’ll kill him - he’s weak enough to not recover from that, and he’d rather be dead than be someone’s plaything until he gets offed.

But Batman doesn’t try to hit him. He’s frozen in place, actually. His hand lowers slowly - slowly, from where it was still raised, but Jason doesn’t relax.

“Alright,” Batman says finally. “I believe you.”

Jason scoffs.

“But you still can’t be alone on the streets.”

“Right. ‘Spose I’ll be safer with you. Look, can’t you just do it now and get it over with?”

Even if he’s huge, and Jason is sure it’ll hurt, Batman’s still a single person, and Jason should still be able to drag himself to safety by the end. If he’s taken home, though, there’ll be no more safety, ever again. “Jus’-jus’ do it now. I’ll even be good, I won’t fight, jus’ please-” fuck, he doesn’t wanna cry. He can’t cry. Nobody cares if he cries, only to yell at him to stop, so - so it’s useless.

He still sniffles, not meeting Batman’s eyes - or, whatever, those weird white lenses where his eyes are supposed to be.

“Lad, what do you think is going to happen?”

Jason’s sleeve is dirty when he brings it to rub at his nose - he only washed it a few days ago, but looking for food and falling to the ground aren’t good for keeping himself clean. “Y’er gonna fuck me,” he explains, scowling. “‘M not dumb. I know what adults want. But please jus’ - jus’ do it once,” he sniffs. “And let-let me go. Please,” he begs, his lungs aching, seizing, preparing to let loose a barrage of sobs that Jason viciously stomps down. Crying never helps.

The way Batman recoils is like Jason just said something unexpected, and he almost rolls his eyes at the dramatics, except he’s too wrung out. He just wants this over with. “Please,” he says again, for good measure, hating the way his voice cracks.

“Son - lad, I’m not going to touch you,” Batman explains, again in that patient-condescending voice that Jason hates. “You’re a child - even if you were able to consent, I wouldn’t ever touch you. I beat up the people who touch children like that.”

Right. He scoffs. Maybe as long as those children aren’t from crime alley.

“You said the foster system is corrupt, and I believe you,” he says. “But you’re injured, and it’s dangerous out here. At least let me offer you dinner, and a place to sleep tonight. Until your ribs feel a bit better.”

Dinner and some payback, more likely. But Jason’s painfully aware of how weak he is right now, lightheaded from hunger and on the bring of passing out. He weighs his options.

One option is to try and run - he’s already seen how that one turns out, and he’s much less likely to fight off batman than a bunch of random thugs, and if he gets away, he’ll probably die from hunger in a random dumpster when his cracked ribs don’t let him move enough to find any food.

The other is to go with him - he’ll probably get raped, but he might get some food, maybe, and Jason’s sold himself for less, before. It’s definitely gonna be warmer than the streets, and maybe he’ll even find a way to run away. Also, Batman is less likely to flip on Jason and make it hurt more, if he goes with him nicely, instead of making things more difficult.

He’s surprised the man hasn’t already slapped him around, given how Jason’s been talking to him.

Fuck.

It isn’t even a choice.

“Only one night?” he asks, though, to be sure.

“If you want to leave, I won’t stop you.”

That’s not a yes, but it’s not a no. It’s a better option than he’ll get if he has to be dragged by force.

Choking down tears and bile, Jason gives a single, resolute nod.

“Fine,” he says, sealing his own fate. “One night.”

**Author's Note:**

> The next morning, when he goes looking for the bathroom, Jason stumbles upon the library. Two hours later. Bruce finds him crying over "The last unicorn" and Jason is ready to move himself and all his things into the library.
> 
> Bruce has a minor crisis, because Jason just skipped ahead seven steps in Bruce's "15 point plan to getting Jason to stay", and he has to Quickly Adjust///
> 
> You can find my Bad Things Happen Bingo request card on my [writing Tumblr](https://i-write-midnight-snacks.tumblr.com/) \- it's filling out ridiculously fast though so give it a quick glance!


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